


Truth, Dare or Drink!

by Alexis_Black



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: HPFT, F/M, Hogwarts Era, Multi, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 08:27:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6416236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexis_Black/pseuds/Alexis_Black
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This fluffy tale was part of a surprise swap for my dear friend, myownmuggle, who had desired a story of romance, love and a happy ending. A specification for pairing Hermione with one of the Weasley men other than Ron or Percy was included, as was snow and a crackling fireplace.</p><p>I still don’t know whether the resulting tale met the requirements entirely, but she seemed pleased. At the time I never had really written a Hermione-centric story, however once I started, the story wrote itself.</p><p>If one day you find this story again, Julie, I want you to know that I *still* blame the Nyquil.</p><p>Banner by katharos @ TDA.</p><p>Story previously submitted at other locations under the penname Snapes_secret and Snape's Talon.</p></blockquote>





	Truth, Dare or Drink!

It all had started at Bill and Fleur’s wedding last summer. There had been a fantastic row between Ron and Hermione. Just because Harry had set aside Ginny, which was quite a mistake in both Hermione and Ginny’s minds, didn’t mean that Ron had to follow suit.

It was bad enough that Harry felt the Horcrux hunt was too dangerous to involve Hermione. It was simply preposterous for Ron to inform Hermione that she was not exactly suited for hunting. Not suited? Who exactly had figured out the Devil’s Snare trap in their first year? Who had determined that Lupin was a werewolf? Who had not only learned the Protean Charm but had also created the magical coins for the DA?

As a result, when Harry and Ron did not return to school in order to gallivant across Britain in search of Horcruxes, Hermione had returned to Hogwarts alone. She had excelled at her subjects, all the while assisting the Order of the Phoenix. Hermione was certain that at least one Horcrux was hidden within the walls of the school. She would prove Harry and Ron were incorrect in their assessment of her abilities.

It had been her intention to stay at Hogwarts over the Christmas break when word came that her parents house had been attacked by Death Eaters. Luckily, the Order had swooped in and got them out before they had come to harm. Her parents were hidden in a safe house somewhere in southern France. Her childhood home hadn’t been so lucky and had been razed. Headmistress McGonagall felt it would be best if Hermione spent Christmas at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. It was protected by a Fidelius Charm and was the most secure location.

The clouds overhead were grey and snow filled the air. A slight breeze made swirling patterns of the snowflakes. The ones that struck the dark door with its silver snake knocker melted away. Hermione hoped that neither Harry nor Ron would be present. They would only point out that her association with the Order had placed her parents at risk. Never mind that every Muggle would be at risk if Voldemort was not stopped soon.

It wasn’t as if she still held a torch for Ron. After their fight, she had spent the last part of the summer in Bulgaria visiting Viktor Krum. It was the perfect way to get over her ill-advised crush on the youngest Weasley boy. Ron had had no trouble getting over her either. Hermione had heard from reliable sources within the Order that Ron had recently been quite taken with one of Fleur’s cousins. Adelaide was almost two years older and was an experienced Curse-Breaker.

Hermione shook the stray thought from her mind. It would not do to dwell on the past. She straightened her shoulders resolutely and knocked. In moments the door swung open to reveal a set of familiar, if unexpected faces.

“Fred! George!” she exclaimed. “Whatever happened to you?”

The Weasley twins were as red-haired as ever, but their faces were streaked with soot. George’s arm was settled in a makeshift sling and Fred’s head was crowned with a stained bandage that was applied crookedly. Dried blood discolored his bright green jumper and both of the twins reeked of smoke.

“Hermione! Come in, we’ve been expecting you,” Fred started.

“Lupin said you’d be arriving soon,” the other finished.

Hermione stepped in, dropped her bags and immediately turned to them. She fussed with Fred’s bandages while they continued talking. Experience had taught her to ignore the impulse to try and keep track of who said what. It would be like a demented tennis match otherwise.

“We heard about your home.”

“Shame about that. We know what it’s like –”

“They destroyed our shop.”

“Bloody tossers!” they both exclaimed vehemently.

Hermione stopped trying to straighten the bandages. “Oh, no! Not you, too!”

They nodded and set about gathering her bags. One held her clothes and the other was bulging with books. As they followed her upstairs to the bedrooms, Fred and George took turns explaining what had occurred. They had just finished running an errand for the Order when they returned to find their shop in flames and the Dark Mark hanging overhead.

They had braved the fire to salvage as much of their merchandise as possible. A lot had been destroyed but luckily, their exclusive, harder-to-find items had been protected by a patented fire-and-thief-proof charm. George had burns on his arm and bruises while debris had grazed Fred, opening a cut on his head. The twins had just finished moving the last of the goods to Grimmauld Place when Hermione had arrived. It was no wonder they stunk of ashes and had not yet fully tended to their injuries.

It was apparent they were the only ones in residence. With no one else to mind them, Hermione took charge. She dispatched them both to wash up and change while she went down to the kitchen to whip up a salve for burns and minor wounds. Regardless of how unsavory Professor Snape could be, and as questionable his teaching methods were, his students did learn quite a bit.

She was cooling the salve when they came down to the kitchen. First she tended to Fred. The gash on his head wasn’t very large, but it had bled profusely everywhere. It didn’t look half so bad after she had cleaned it up a bit.

Leaning close to him as she finished fixing the gauze wrap, Hermione couldn’t help but compare Fred’s features to Ron. They shared the same flame-red hair, but where Ron’s eyes were blue, Fred’s were hazel. His nose was also shorter than Ron’s and spattered with freckles, and there were highlights of gold in his fiery hair where his younger sibling had none.

Fred’s generous mouth split into a wide grin when Hermione finished. “Thanks! You know, you’re pretty good at that.”

“Got a Healer’s touch, she does,” George agreed from the other side of the table. Hermione got up and started to work on his arm. The injury appeared to be a second-degree burn. The forearm was red and covered in small, angry blisters.

“Honestly, you two should have been more careful. Makeshift bandages simply won’t do,” Hermione scolded as she lathered the affected area with a thick layer of the salve and loosely wrapped it. Then it went into a proper sling.

“Could do some work on the bedside manner, though,” Fred stage-whispered as George nodded his head in agreement.

Hermione gave a long-suffering sigh and rolled her eyes. As she adjusted the sling she noted that George was a bit stockier than Ron and was pleasantly broader at the shoulders. It was probably the result of playing Beater for so many years. Then there was his scent. Once the soot had been washed away and the clothes had been exchanged for something less grimy, Hermione could smell how different it was to Viktor’s. It was almost woodsy with a hint of a spicy undertone.

They were both more talkative than the Bulgarian Seeker and far less serious. Hermione felt more at ease with Fred and George than she had with anyone else in a long time.

“So tell me, where is Lupin? I thought he was staying here with Harry and, um, Ron, trying to look out for them.”

Fred and George exchanged glances. “Lupin is out with Tonks.”

“Turns out, she’s a bit preggers,” George confided, patting his stomach.

Fred grinned at Hermione’s shocked look. “Looks like ol’ Remus has been doing more than just howling at the moon. Maybe we should invite him to browse our exclusive products for discrete-"

George silenced his twin with a sharp motion.

Hermione’s mouth dropped. She knew Tonks liked Lupin, but the last Hermione had heard, Remus had been pushing her away. The kitchen was filled with mock howling as the two joked around about the unanticipated situation.

“Anyways, Harry’s gone off to Godric’s Hollow. He figures You-Know-Who might have left a Horcrux at his parents’ home when he, you know –“

Fred mimicked pointing a wand at George and his twin fell over dramatically. Hermione snorted, torn between laughter at the twins’ antics and Harry’s typical lack of common sense.

“As if that will do him any good. Really, if Harry wanted to know whether a Horcrux was present at the time, all he had to do was use the Pensieve in Dumbledore’s office.”

The twins displayed identical bewildered expressions. Hermione patiently explained. “It doesn’t matter whether he can actively remember the events. Harry would still have the memories of that night, regardless of how young he was. All he had to do was extract the memories and view them with the Pensieve. And let’s be frank, it’s not as if the Horcrux, if it was present that night, would still be there.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Logic,” she answered with a twinkle in her eyes. “Obviously someone else was there. Didn’t it never strike you that You-Know-Who’s wand should have been found in the wreckage? In his newly incorporeal form, Voldemort would hardly have been in a state to hide his wand. Thus someone must have been there to secure the wand, which he later used on Harry. You do recall the Priori Incantatem that occurred when Harry fought Voldemort at the end of the Triwizard Tournament. That proves the presence of another person. If the Horcrux had been present, it would have also been taken by this unknown individual.”

The twins exchanged astonished looks. “So, Harry and Ron are on a wild goose chase?” George ventured.

“Yes, isn’t that what I just said?”

“Brilliant!”

Hermione eyed them suspiciously. Usually, the twins could be counted on to stand up for their siblings. After a long moment under her glare, they admitted that Ron had been acting the prat lately, full of himself regarding both the Horcrux hunt, and his new and rather experienced French girlfriend.

As interesting as it was learning what her two former best friends were up to, Hermione did not want to focus on them or recent events. What she needed was a break. “Look, if it’s alright with you two, I’d rather not talk about Horcruxes, Ron or the Death Eaters anymore.”

“What do you want to do?” George asked.

“I don’t know. Something not related to the Order. Something different, something …” She waved her hands about.

“Fun?” Fred completed.

Hermione nodded. Fred and George’s eyes gleamed and they broke out into mischievous grins.

“You’ve come to -”

“- the right place. How about -”

“- a snowball fight?”

Hermione followed them out to the backyard of number twelve, Grimmauld Place and was greeted by a winter wonderland. During the summer the area had been an overgrown mess. Now it had been transformed by winter’s touch. A mantle of fresh white snow covered the ground. The ragged trees were elegantly cloaked in white and the ornamental pond had frozen over.

As Hermione gazed at the wintry scene, she was suddenly pelted by a snowball. She barely managed to duck the next one. Forgetting the grim vision of her burned out home and the threat of Voldemort, Hermione quickly gathered up some snow and threw it at Fred.

For close to an hour, the three of them built forts and traded fast-flung snowballs. When Hermione used magic to shove snow down Fred and George’s trousers, they chased her back inside. Their cheeks were ruddy and their noses were red with cold. Hermione’s bushy hair was dusted in snow. She couldn’t remember the last time she had set aside her burdens. The last thing Hermione wanted was to shoulder them again. Tomorrow would be soon enough.

While George made tea and Fred stroked up the fireplace, Hermione decided on a plan. She excused herself and hunted for the bottles of Firewhisky that Sirius had stored in the bedroom he had occupied before passing through the veil. Surely Sirius would not have begrudge her two bottles. If anything, Hermione imagined Sirius would have been quite amused with her plan.

“What are you up to, Hermione?” George asked, handing her the tea. She politely declined the steaming cup and held up the two bottles.

“Have either of you ever heard of the Muggle game, ‘Truth, Dare or Drink’?”

As she had suspected, neither of the twins had. Hermione quickly explained the rules as they sat on the rug in a circle next to the crackling fireplace. One bottle was spun around on the floor between them. Whomever the bottle pointed towards had the choice of truthfully answer a question, completing a dare or drinking a shot of Ogden’s Finest. Of course, no magic was allowed.

Not bothering to mask their expressions of surprise, Fred and George immediately decided to play the Muggle game. They had never seen this playful side of Hermione and found it to be quite delightful, if unexpected. They promptly insisted that the best way to start the game would be with a toast. After badgering her for a few long moments, they convinced Hermione. She found that the taste was horrible. Whatever had Sirius seen in drinking it? The fumes burned her nose and made her eyes tear up so much that she waved to George take her turn.

George spun the bottle. It twirled about and finally pointed to Fred, who shrugged nonchalantly.

“Let’s try ‘Dare’,” Fred said.

A wicked grin graced George’s face. “I dare you to kiss Hermione.”

“W-what?” Hermione sputtered.

“I can dare Fred to do that. It’s within the rules, right?” George asked pointedly.

“Well, yes, but -”

“Then I dare Fred to kiss you, Hermione.”

Hermione conceded defeat. Fred leaned over and brushed his lips against hers. A thrill went through Hermione at the chaste touch and she blushed.

“You call that a kiss?” George demanded incredulously.

“Think you can do better?” Fred retorted. Then he spun the bottle, flicking it with precision so it would end its rotation at Hermione.

Looking him straight in the eye, Hermione called out, “Truth.”

“Your choice,” Fred warned. “Were you in love with Ron or was it just a passing fancy?”

Hermione winced. She thought she had outmaneuvered Fred with her selection, but had not anticipated he would ask such a personal question.

“Just a fancy.”

The twins exchanged loaded glances. Hermione pointedly ignored them and spun the bottle. It revolved several times before stopping back on herself.

“So, what do the rules say to do when that happens?” George inquired.

Frantically, Hermione searched her memory, but she couldn’t recall what happened when the bottle landed on the spinner. She gave a helpless shrug.

George wasted no time. “Sounds like it’s time -”

“- for a new rule!” Fred exclaimed.

“Drink!” they chorused.

Her face screwed up, Hermione gagged down her second shot of Firewhisky. It burned a fiery path down her throat straight to her stomach. She spun the bottle again while wondering if introducing the Weasleys to this game had been a wise idea.

Fred opted for a question and Hermione complied. “Angelina,” she coughed, throat still burning, “I thought you were going out with her?”

He tossed back his head with a careless confidence. “It didn’t work. She’s not my type of girl.” Then he winked at her.

Hermione blinked. She didn’t know what surprised her more: that Fred wasn’t going out with Angelina or that he had just winked at her. She completely missed it when the bottle was spun and landed on George.

With an equally impish look, George declared, “Dare!”

“I dare you, dear brother, to demonstrate the proper method of kissing.” As George puckered up in his direction, Fred hastily clarified his statement. “On Hermione, that is.”

Before Hermione could object, George slipped a hand behind her head and leaned down. He tasted her lips, gently at first. Then his lips became more insistent, sliding over hers. Hermione held herself still as his tongue begged entry and then slipped in as she relented. Her hands glided up his shoulders and she held on. Teasingly, he touched her tongue, inviting her to explore his mouth. Stars went off behind her closed eyes and she was out of breath by the time George pulled away.

Hermione heard clapping as if from a distance. She glanced up to see Fred cheering his twin. With cheeks stained a bright red, Hermione looked away. This was not what she had expected when she thought to introduce them to the Muggle game. Now as the slowly spinning bottle stopped on her, Hermione was torn between stopping the game completely and seeing it through to its end.

“Uh, I don’t know,” she muttered, unsure of what would be safest course of action. “Truth?”

“Viktor Krum?” George asked.

“Come again?”

There was a sly glance passed between the twins as if each were daring the other to respond to her innocent question. It was the identical impish grins which followed, though, that prompted Hermione to quickly to avert wherever Fred and George seemed on the verge of heading. “What about Krum?” she clarified.

“Are you still seeing him?”

Hermione shook her head in mute response. Then she spun bottle and watched it land on Fred.

“Ask me a question, Hermione, any question.”

She struggled to form a question. Something safe, something not to do with dating or kissing. An idea popped into her mind and the words tumbled out of her mouth without a second thought. “What products were you referring to earlier, when you were talking about Lupin?”

Hermione’s stomach contracted when she saw the look Fred and George exchanged. It went beyond mischievous. The wicked gleam in their eyes made her suddenly anxious.

“Ah, our newest line of product,” Fred began. “Exclusively for our more –“

“Mature?” George interrupted helpfully.

“I was going to say discriminating, but mature works just as well,” Fred confided in his twin before turning back to Hermione. “For our mature clientele with more discriminating tastes, we have a variety of products for use behind the bedroom doors. We have them upstairs in a locked chest.”

Both hands flew to Hermione’s mouth. _They couldn’t possibly mean … that,_ she thought, but the expression on their faces told the truth. _Dear Merlin, they do mean that!_

George and Fred watched as bewilderment, surprise, shock and finally something akin to curiosity crossed Hermione’s features. Wordlessly, Fred handed her another shot which she gratefully gulped it down.

Red heads leaned close together, they whispered furiously. Twin freckled hands touched the bottle and spun it around. It revolved rapidly, the light of the fireplace glinting off its surface. Then slower and slower it spun, until it wobbled to a stop at Hermione.

A moment of calm clarity washed over her. The intellectual side of Hermione demanded she should just get up and walk away from the game. There was, however, a different side of her, one that had been struggling to emerge since she broke up with Ron. She had always been the studious one, the serious student, the one who worked tirelessly. Now Hermione acknowledged there was a part of her that longed for something completely different, something … more.

George and Fred winked salaciously at her. In their faces she saw two men she could trust and a yearning they, too, had hidden very well up to now. Deep inside her, she felt an echo of that desire.

How many times had she looked at Ron and not realized that Fred and George held a place in her heart? How many times had she silenced the strange longing of her heart while in Bulgaria? Now those whispers could not be denied.

“Dare,” she sighed.

“We dare you, Hermione Granger -”

“- to experiment with some of the discriminating products -”

“- with us.”

Very carefully, Hermione nodded. They each took one of her hands, pulled her to her feet and then guided Hermione upstairs where a certain locked chest awaited in their bedroom.

The fireplace was left unattended. It crackled contentedly to itself. At its hearth was a half-emptied bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhisky and a shot glass. Another bottle lay on the rug. Outside, fat snowflakes wrapped London in an innocent blanket of white while upstairs Hermione learned to listen to her heart.

 

_~ Finite ~_

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fluffy tale was part of a surprise swap for my dear friend, myownmuggle, who had desired a story of romance, love and a happy ending. A specification for pairing Hermione with one of the Weasley men other than Ron or Percy was included, as was snow and a crackling fireplace.
> 
> I still don’t know whether the resulting tale met the requirements entirely, but she seemed pleased. At the time I never had really written a Hermione-centric story, however once I started, the story wrote itself.
> 
> If one day you find this story again, Julie, I want you to know that I *still* blame the Nyquil.
> 
> Banner by katharos @ TDA.
> 
> Story previously submitted at other locations under the penname Snapes_secret and Snape's Talon.


End file.
